It comes as no surprise that on an island that is more known for its grapes and wine production that beer is slightly tougher to come by in Santorini. The island is home to many wine producers but is home to only one brewery, the Santorini Brewing Co. Travelling through the winding roads of Santorini , dodging some very suspect driving from the locals, quad bikes and people hiking on foot roadside, you won’t go 10 minutes without seeing a vineyard, growing grapes in their uni

People from all over the world travelled to Barcelona to attend the awesome beer festival this March but not only did they get to enjoy a brilliant beer festival they also got to do some beer travel and experience Barcelona’s fresh, vibrant, growing beer scene. In the centre of it all is Garage Beer Co, a microbrewery which opened in not even a year ago in the Eixample district, the same district as Bier Cab and Brewdog. It’s roughly a 15+ minute walk from La Ramblas and you

La Ramblas, one of the world’s most famous streets, a busy long snake like street with shops, restaurants and tourist attractions running down its sides with market stalls providing anything from hand painted cartoons of yourself to fruit and veg shaped in rather questionable shapes! If you’ve visited Barcelona then the likelihood is you’ve been here or been to one of my favourite places in the world, La Boqueria market. Just off La Ramblas and across from La Boqueria market

Since my love for good beer has increased to obsession level there have been a few people I have met that ooze of so much enthusiasm, passion, ambition, knowledge and likability that makes me realise that it’s more than what’s in a bottle. They make my enthusiasm wake up, they make me want to write more blog posts and try to turn people from their boring pint of mass produced beer to something more interesting, they make me love great beers more, people like Logan at Beaverto

In a country dominated by wine is there room for beer to shine? Bordeaux is famous for their wines but what does the city have for the beer lover? I had a chance to explore Bordeaux for a little while working there over a weekend. I wanted to find out what kind of beer scene there is in the mist of a French community big on wine. Bordeaux is quite a nice city and there are many sights to be seen around the city centre, in all honesty I didn’t enjoy Paris (possibly due to terr

366 different beers!!! How am I going to try 366 different types of beer from 97 different breweries! This is the first problem you are faced with when planning a trip to the Bruges Beer Festival. The brutal reality is you have no chance but once you get over that then you’re are in for a great time because the Bruges Beer Festival is brilliant. It all starts with an early Eurostar train journey to Brussels, for those who have never used the Eurostar to travel to Belgium then

A trip to the aquarium to try and do something that didn’t involve beer drinking during our time in Barcelona brought us to the Barcelona seafront and in doing so brought us to BlackLab Brewhouse. So our break from beer brought us to more beer! Truth be told the aquarium really wasn’t all that and the reason we went there was because I swear on our previous visit to Barcelona I was told it was the biggest aquarium in Europe… Well I hope it isn’t because if it is then Europe’s

The sound of mass talking, laughing and general merriment booms down the beautiful Maritime museum hall, suddenly the noise is broken by the ringing of a bell which is greeted by huge cheers, the giant chalkboard has a beer name cleaned off and replaced with a new beer freshly tapped. Repeat this process continuously for what seems like every half minute… Welcome to Saturday night at the Barcelona beer festival! It doesn’t seem that long ago when I first showed the informatio

The very first time I went to Brussels I was overwhelmed with all the beers, sweet triples, rich dark dubbel’s and the holy Trappist beers! Then out of nowhere this beer smacks me in the face with a whole pack of hops! This low % (for Belgian beers anyways) bitter finish taste was the brilliant “Taras Boulba” by Brasserie De La Senne. The next time I went to Brussels I’m in Poechenellekelder cafe with two friends and I order “Jambe de Bois” and again I’m very impressed with t

When I hear Riga I used to automatically get this image in my head of big groups of stag do’s running wild in the town drinking loads of local lager and burying their heads in Latvian strippers cleavages, the truth is this previous image, for me, was utter rubbish! Firstly and thankfully my day in Riga didn’t include any stag parties secondly Riga is a slick, smart, trendy beautiful looking city. Arguably it has one of the best collections of Art Nouveau style houses in the w

As mentioned in my post about Mikkeller bar I was on a Baltic cruise with work this summer (Soooo late with these posts!) and my next beer destination after Copenhagen was Gdansk. I knew nothing about Gdansk other than it was in Poland and to be honest my knowledge of Polish beers doesn’t go too much further than the strong stuff you can buy in Leyton with the bear on the can! My only other previous experience with Polish lager was many many years ago when Wetherspoons used t

Mikkeller, possibly the modern beer geeks most highly admired name in the world of beer. I am going to hold my hands up, I slept on Mikkeller for ages and maybe in an act of stubbornness ignored the ‘hipsters’ hype around them! As I learnt the story of Mikkeller the more I started to listen, the classic story of two twins splitting up and starting two different beer brands (Evil Twin/Mikkeller) then growing into this mystic gypsy brewer visiting the world’s  famous breweries

One thing I love about Holland and Dutch people is how so relaxed, laid back and non stressed they all come across, this rubbed off on us a little while there as after a long sleep in and a leisurely walk through some markets and shops we visited our next venue just as it opened. 9. Gollem – @CafeGullem – website When we last visited Amsterdam a trip to Gollem was high up on the list of things to do but we didn’t get round to seeing it however, as you can read in my first vis

After a nice snooze we set on our ways for the second day in Amsterdam, first we stocked up on food supplies for the day in a local supermarket. Whenever I go shopping in Europe I am always surprised at how much better their supermarkets are! They are always tidier and always look much more fresh. We ended up getting enough to cover us for all day till a evening snack later on! Today’s itinerary was Amsterdam zoo! Our hotel was a tiny bit out of the main canal circuit (and wa

Three false facts I always hear about Amsterdam… 1. The food is shit 2. There’s nothing but Heineken and Amstel 3. It is propa expensive to go out drinking Ok so last time I went I may have thought number 1 is true as the night we ate out we struggled to find anywhere good amongst all the Argentinean kebab shops but this time I have! Anyone who lives near me from London down to Essex should use Southend airport when travelling to Amsterdam, you could prob check in 30 mins b

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside…  Ok Ostend is the first part of my 5 day Belgian trip. It’s been a busy month or two with both our works and both having a great wedding each to go to on the Saturday we thought a day and a bit laying on a beach somewhere would be good. So why not have a good beer in hand while doing so… Ostend is kind of like the Southend of the Belgium Rivera. The city on the sea boasts a pretty huge beach and had pretty good sand quality no stoney Bri

I went to college and a year of a university level course at Southend to learn about music production and technology, something I now have nothing to do with but now I wish I had set sail and and done my education (drinking) in Leuven! Leuven is a 25 minute train ride from Brussels and is home to KU Leuven University and is very much a uni town. If Ostend is like the Southend of my trip then Leuven is the Chelmsford! A mixture of the old and the New with busy long shopping st

Every time I visit Bruges I think I fall in love with it even more! It was so quick to get from our hotel in Ostend that it took 40 minutes to get from one hotel to the other and cost only 4 euro’s per single. We checked into our hotel (hotel Academie which I have to fully recommend to anyone thinking about going to Bruges for its great location and very high standards!) around 10 am and Bruges was incredibly still and tourist free peaceful , a first and probably last moment

DK Eyewitness, Lonley Planet, Tripadvisor, AA Travel and Michelin all take a back seat for a minute and listen up … There is only one book for the beer thirsty traveler… Roughly a year ago or so I made one of the best purchases I have ever made when it comes to travelling. After having the pleasure to see Podge’s beer bar in action at the Chelmsford CAMRA Summer beer festival I did a bit of a Google on them. For anyone who has never heard of Podge then here is a quick summery

As I mentioned on my last post I was recently sent on one of the river cruises that the company I work for provide and for one whole morning I was at leisure to explore the tiny town of Veere.  With a population that you could fit into Leyton Orients average home crowd three times (approx 1,500) Veere homes 3 churches, 2 windmills, a lighthouse and even a castle which is now a youth hostal?! The small port town that once use to be the staple port for Scotland but now the port